It Is God Who Calls Us, Pt. 2

Ronald Weinland

August 8, 2020

This will be Part 2 of the series entitled It Is God Who Calls Us.

I am always amazed, as I said last Sabbath, about how sermons follow one another, as whether it be single sermons or series or whatever it might be there’s a gradual process whereby God molds and fashions us and it’s always good to be able to look back to see that process, see what God is doing and there’s a great deal that can be learned from that. I do that often by going back and just looking at various things—and kind of keenly aware of that anyway—but what God’s doing because it’s God’s work and God is the one who molds and fashions us. God is the one who calls us and there is a lot that can be learned from that.

But as I mentioned last Sabbath, basically the Church lost that. They lost that knowledge; they lost that understanding. It wasn’t a focus anymore. By the time we went through the Apostasy it really wasn’t a focus and there were a lot who just didn’t think about that anymore. So, it wasn’t being preached, as a whole, by the ministry and that’s too bad because if that had been the focus it would have given a lot of people and even the start in some organizations a lot better start, a lot better focus. But because that was ignored, not focused upon as it should have been, a lot of bad decisions were made. Too bad.

So anyway, we began this series by focusing on how God called Herbert Armstrong who often referred to the commission, which was referred to as “The Work.” So, sometimes he would speak of his commission. He understood that well. Then what we were doing, what he was doing, what the Church was focused upon was the work. The co-worker’s letters that would go out, letters to the brethren, and so forth, things that would be written, he would just flat refer to “The Work.” We understood what that was and we understood it had to do with the commission that was given to him because he repeated it quite often.

And that’s good, because that way it helps us to have the same thinking, the same focus cemented in our being, in our minds, to be on the same page so we knew what he was talking about and what we were doing and where we were going.

So, everything was about getting the work accomplished, which was, in his case, as he referred to, to go into all the world with the gospel and he did that. He was powerfully focused upon that, awesomely so. Again, things that we can learn from that.

He taught and recognized that the growth of the Church was a result of God’s work; God was doing it, of God’s calling. So, we’re blessed to be a part of it, and we have to put ourselves into that and whatever that might consist of. We have to pray about, we have to focus upon ourselves and support it ourselves, be behind it ourselves, whatever phase it might be, and whatever that might mean. But to understand that we’re able to be a part of that, again, because of God’s calling.

God does the calling. What an awesome thing to understand! Then we just have to make choices along the way, like I’d mentioned the sermon before this where Wayne said, “I choose You.” That’s not just a one-time thing. You have to do it over and over and over again day by day in your life to make those choices. God is first! That’s a part of choosing God, in choosing Him.

We’re incredibly blessed to be called, to have things communicated to our minds that the only way we can receive it is because God communicates it through His spirit into the very mind. Awesome, to understand that. You can’t convince anyone of anything like that in the world. They think you’re nuts. “God speaks to you? Communicates to your mind?” Yes, but until a person has experienced that and knows that in their own life doesn’t mean much.

So again, there is much that the scattered Church should have grasped concerning the truth but didn’t after the Apostasy – that growth is only given by God because God does the calling. I mean, isn’t it simple? God does the calling! And so if you want to have a magazine and you want to repeat everything that was done in the past, you want to have a telecast and you’re focus is going to be that because, first of all, you don’t believe that God finished a phase of the work through his servant, Herbert Armstrong, to complete what it says concerning that period of time of Philadelphia and what God did in and through him.

We’ve had to learn a lot of things the hard way, we really have. To grasp this, that growth only is given by God, we understand that individually in our own lives, growth comes from God. You don’t do it. You have to do things, yes. You have to work at it. You have to support. You have to be a part of whatever God shows you in order to grow, but God is the one who gives the growth, God is the one who has the power, the holy spirit to give to you so that you can grow. Otherwise, you can’t grow! And not only that, you can’t even hold on to what God has given to you, unless God continues to do so because you’re crying out for it.

Because you can lose it all. Every year we have people go by the wayside. Why? Because they’re not growing. Because there is some sin or sins. Because one sin that’s unrepented of leads into other sins, and after a while the mind becomes mushy spiritually. It can’t see straight; it can’t grasp and comprehend things as it did in the past. It just can’t. Without God’s spirit you begin to lose soundness of mind spiritually and you just can’t see what you saw before and you can’t act upon it either.

We’re able to act upon what God gives to us if we desire to stay close to Him and seek to do so. Then we have that opportunity to be able to stay focused. Otherwise, you start losing focus of what this is all about, of who you are, of why you were called, of what’s expected of you in your life day by day.

That’s why I marvel at things like this that are so easily lost. Because I’ve seen hundreds, literally thousands of people that I have known and met and talked to who have gone by the wayside and lost reality of how God works. God does the calling. He gives you His holy spirit. He wants you to grow, and without Him, you can’t grow and the Church can’t grow. The Church won’t grow unless God’s in it, and if it’s His purpose. Because right now, we’re not growing, we’re going down in numbers. We have been for some time.

I understand that process, been through it several times now. Up, down, up, doooown, way down. To think where we are now compared to what we were before the Apostasy, it’s incredible. But if God has a purpose, He will give growth, and so, spoke of that last Sabbath. Year by year when Mr. Armstrong was God’s apostle, the Church kept growing. Every year. Some would argue about the comment he would make about how it was growing at 30% a year. But for a period of time there every year there was a thirty percent growth in various things within the work, within the Church. Even within the numbers of people being baptized. Why is that? Because it was God’s purpose. God was doing it. God did it. No individual did it. No group of individuals can do that. God does it, and so, you can look at what God is doing by what happens in the Church. You know what God is doing and you can oftentimes see a purpose in what He’s doing. You learn that as He shows you and reveals things to you depending on the time and where that might fit, whether it fits into Philadelphia, Laodicea, or now the Church of God—PKG, a remnant, a remnant of what existed before, a very small remnant.

First thing we learn from that is what God has to say, and He makes it very clear that He’s going to make it clear to everyone, “Not by might, nor by power, but by My might, by My spirit,” He’s going to accomplish what He has done. No one is going to take it to themselves and say, “Look at what we did.” No organization, no group of people is going to be able to say, “Look what we did. Look what we accomplished.” God’s not going to allow that.

I’ve oftentimes mentioned this, but there’s a great deal to be learned from it as well. Like the one minister after the Apostasy who I thought was beginning to see some things. Came to visit and the first thing out of his mouth as he sits in our living room is “I raised up this church over here and this church up here; and all these different churches now, I’ve raised up.”

I did a slow burn. No sense in arguing with him. He’s lost in his foolishness and stupidity. That’s what it was, foolishness and stupidity. Because I knew, which he should have known, you don’t raise up diddly squat. If anything is raised up, God did it. You didn’t do it. If you were a part of it, if God used you as instrument, as a service and so forth, that’s all it was. Be thankful that you had that opportunity to share and be a part of something like that. But you did not do it!

Do you see how bad that is, to take credit for something, honor of something that God only is to receive? It’s God who does it. That’s why pride is such an ugly thing. That’s why pride is one of the primary things that every one of us has to see in our lives, to where we hate it with all of our being.

Because that’s what happened to Lucifer. It leads into every evil. And so, if we recognize what pride is, what haughtiness is, we don’t want it to be a part of our life in any fashion or form. We don’t want it to be there. We will fight against it as it rises up inside of us. We will be disgusted by it whenever we see the slightest little bit of it. It’ll be repulsive to us, like vomiting and puking. You see someone hurling, and you know, all this stuff is coming out. And you know what it does to you? It almost… ugh, you feel like doing the same thing because it’s so ugly!

That’s how we should be about pride and haughtiness. It stinks. It’s hideous. It’s putrid, what can come out of us, it really is. We should hate it that way on a spiritual plane.

God calls us. God accomplishes the work, whatever that is, and we’re blessed to be a part of it and to grow within the midst of it all. Which we should be thankful for, to have such opportunity. But He does it all.

I think of something else Mr. Armstrong said though as well, that we should do it as though we’re doing it ourselves. Put every energy and strength into it but knowing all the time it’s God who does it. That comes from an attitude and a spirit that we realize that we have to work, there are things we have to accomplish in our lives.

Just like the sermon series about prayer. If we’re not doing that right now. If we’re not doing better in our prayer life right now, shame on us! Because God Almighty is the one who gives the growth and prayer is the primary tool you have to cry out to God to say, “I’m hungry and thirsty and I want to grow spiritually. Please, strengthen me in Your holy spirit!” Day by day that should be our prayer, “I need You. I need Your holy spirit!” And if we don’t do those things, we don’t get it yet. We have to go through some hard times until we can learn that, because it must be a part of our being.

Our strength, our growth, our being able to continue in what we have been given comes from God. Because you can’t even continue in it on your own once He’s opened up your mind to everything. Sin will take that away in a moment.

2 Timothy is where we were last week. 2 Timothy 1. We’ll just pick it up there in the last part of that again and finish this before we go on.

2 Timothy 1:9—Who, speaking of God Almighty, has saved us… Isn’t that amazing how it starts out? It is God who has saved us. God Almighty is the one who saves us. From the moment He calls you, begins to draw you, as far as God is concerned when He’s opened your mind and He’s going to give you grace, which means forgiveness of sin, mercy, love, all the things, His holy spirit, His truth, He’s going to start sharing these things with you.

As soon as He does that you’re saved. It’s just up to us to say, “I choose You,” over and over and over again in our lives. We just have to make the right choices. God’s put it out there for us. All we have to do is go forward with what He’s given to us. Awesome! To live what He says, to live by faith for what He’s given us to believe. We live it, we have it; we’re saved. Now, we know we’re not until it’s finished, until God finally says, “Now I know you.” But as far as God is concerned, He’s given us everything to be saved.

Who has saved us and called us, this is how He’s done it, this is where it begins, with a holy calling. It’s set apart for holy use and purpose. We’ve been set apart for holy use and purpose. God opens up our minds, He’s got a purpose in it. And what is that? Well, for some yet it’s to be a part of the 144,000. For others, it’s to continue on to be the foundation of the Church that continues on, that had experience in what it was like to live at a time after the eras of the Church, at a time when there was only a remnant and a small group of people that was left.

You can really have no idea what it’s going to be like to be one of those. The honor that you will be able to take more so than you would be able to take, obviously, even now because of what you’re going to go through and realize even more so the experience, the opportunity that you had to come through the worst times in all human history in order to be the foundation, the beginning that just continues on. It doesn’t stop. God’s Church that started in 31 A.D. continues on until it’s all accomplished.

…saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works. Awesome! Not because of how smart we are. Not because of how intellectual we are. Not because of how good we’ve been. Because none of us have been too good. Because human nature is not good. Human nature is just downright ugly. It’s hideous. I loathe human nature. I loathe it. It’s steeped in selfishness.

What an incredible blessing to be able to see that, to know that about ourselves, what our nature is like. You can’t have too great of expectations on that one, but you can with God’s help and God’s spirit living in your life to transform the way you think and that’s what we desire.

…not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace. To become a part of His family, the process that has to be there, we have to go through this. We have to go through this ugliness of selfish life. We have to experience it all around us. We have to learn how to judge in the midst of all that before we’re too harsh on everyone else to realize, “I’ve got to look at myself in the mirror. The reason I know that is because that’s me too.” We do the same things. Maybe not exactly the same things, but our nature, spiritually, is just like that, like the world around us

…but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given to us in Christ Joshua before time began. Awesome, how much you know, what you grasp, to be able to know. Because we haven’t always known it. It’s so easy to take for granted what we have at the end of an age. Truly is. To understand that before anything was ever created, before anything in the angelic realm was ever created, this was God’s purpose, Elohim. That Christ would be the pinnacle of it all. He would be the foundation of it all. He would be the cornerstone of it all. Awesome!

…who hath abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light through the good news.

Romans 8; turning over to Romans 8. Romans 8:28—Now we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. So again, over and over again in scriptures here we read about a calling, about being called and what that means, a relationship that we can have with God as a result of that.

For whom He foreknew, He also predestined. In the world, what can you get out of that? Well, you get these different ideas about predestination. People really go off on tangents. Without God’s spirit you can’t understand what it’s about.

How blessed we are, to see the plan through the Holy Days and what God’s given to us, to grasp that there is a plan and what’s entailed in that plan, and to understand here that this predestination it’s talking about is what God desires for all of mankind in their time when they’re called, of something they’re going to be able to fit into.

He wants us to be in His family. He calls us in order to have opportunity to be part of His family when it’s all said and done, if we continue to make the right choices, continue to cry out to God for His help, for His guidance, for His strength, for His life living within us, to be able to be forgiven of sin, constantly crying out to God when we see wrong thinking, wrong judgment, wrong attitudes in our mind coming out of our stinking, rotten selfishness. To be able to say, “I don’t want to be like that. Please, forgive me through my Passover. Thank you for giving me that, otherwise I would be able to have this relationship with You at all.”

So again, over and over again we repeat those things in our life. God doesn’t get tired of hearing it when it’s genuine from inside here, when it comes from inside because that’s what you really want. God knows if you’re genuine or not. If you really desire that He wants to give you that strength and help you need. Because without it you can’t do it.

…for whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover, whom He predetermined, these He also called. It’s showing a process here of being called, of being drawn by God’s spirit, of having one’s mind opened up.

So, “whom He predetermined.” Who did He predetermine? Well, whenever He would call anyone, that they would have opportunity to have a part in His family, in the Church, to have a relationship within a Body, within an organization, organized group of people that God brings together and we would learn within that. We would be taught within that and depending on how we respond we could grow in that.

Them He called, them He also justified. Through Christ. And whom He justified, these He also glorified. We don’t grasp sometimes how much we’ve been given. That in this physical life even God has given us a glory that’s from Him – to be able to have the impregnation of His spirit, to have the growing part of His mind in you. What an incredible thing to understand.

There is a glory in our lives above and beyond what the world has because they don’t have that yet and it leads us to that glory that God wants to give to us when this body is changed, whether we die and decay and are in a resurrection, or whether we’re changed in the moment, in the twinkling of an eye.

And whom He justified, these He also glorified, to be able to have a relationship with God, that God Almighty could dwell in you. Because He doesn’t dwell in the world. Sometimes we’re just, candidly, not mindful of that in our lives day by day, appreciative to the level we should be in our lives. That has to be something real in your thinking, of what you have, of what God has given to you.

Then what shall we say of these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? So, even there there’s a boldness we should grow in, a confidence we should grow in as we grow within the Church year by year by year, growing in a confidence, in a boldness that comes in no other way. That God called you. That God wants to work in you. That God wants you to be in His family.

1 Corinthians 1:4— I thank my God always concerning you for the grace of God which was given to you by/through Christ Joshua, that you were enriched in everything by Him in all utterance (speaking) and all knowledge. So again, this ability of what God gives to us, to be able to hear or ever how it comes to us, whether it be God that communicates it to our minds because we hear it somewhere or we read it somewhere and that mysterious thing that works in our lives that the world can’t grasp because it’s not a physical thing, it’s a spiritual thing. The ability to see, the ability to receive God’s word and to grow in greater knowledge and understanding of those things that we are given as we grow.

…even as the witness of Christ was confirmed in you, so that you come short in no gift, eagerly waiting for the revelation of our Lord Joshua the Christ. So again, it’s something we look forward to. We’re always looking ahead, desiring a time. We’re motivated by that because we want to be in God’s Family. We want to be a part of Elohim and we know there is incredible struggle to get to that point.

…who will also confirm you to the end, that you may be blameless in the day of our Lord Joshua the Christ. So again, it’s always looking forward to the time, first, of his coming. That’s what it’s referring first of all to because that’s who he was addressing. Because all who were being called during the time of the apostles, through the different Church eras, it was for one resurrection, the first resurrection. It was about their being molded and fashioned then. Those who didn’t choose it, those who didn’t want it, those who went astray, only the few who were chosen through all of that would have such an opportunity to be resurrected when He came. And so, “to be blameless in the day of our Lord,” that means they have to be sealed. Blameless, being able to be resurrected spirit into God’s Family. That’s what it’s all about.

God is faithful, by/through whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son. So again, sometimes we don’t think about things like this and what it means, that we have a fellowship. We have a fellowship with one another because we have a fellowship with His Son and with God Almighty.

And that fellowship, you know what a lot of that fellowship is? Every time you pray to be reminded he is your elder brother. He made it possible for you to pray to the Father, to have a relationship with God Almighty, and it’s through him that you’re able to have that relationship because of the fact, first and foremost, he is our Passover.

To ever be thankful for that, that we have a Passover so that every time we sin we can ask God and He’ll forgive us of our sins. To have that kind of confidence to know you don’t have to carry it around with you. You don’t have to beat yourself down. Because that’s what we tend to do in the beginning of our calling, and sometimes really stretched out into our life sometimes until we get to a point where we know that every time we repent it’s gone and you don’t carry anything with you.

You don’t have to carry one single thing with you. If you repent, genuinely so before God, it’s gone. But sometimes we tend to beat ourselves down and mope around. No, you should lift your head high to know that you’re able to walk in God’s spirit, you’re able to live that life that He’s giving to you, and that He means what He says, that we learn that and we know you’re able to continue to have a relationship with Him. Every time you pray you know He’s hearing you. You don’t have to wonder whether or not He’s hearing you.

Now, if you have some sin in your life and you’re messing around with some things and doing some things you shouldn’t be then you should be concerned He’s not hearing you. Because He may not be in those cases. That happens in God’s Church a lot because we ignore God. So, what’s He going to do? He’s going to ignore us. He’s not going to listen to us until we repent.

It goes on to say, 1 Peter 5:8—Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, walks about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Bad thing to let down. Bad thing to become spiritually weak. You know why? Because God allows this. He allows it as something that should sober us to the core of our being. To think that there is a being out there that can have influence over us and we not be able to fight. Because if you are cut off from God’s spirit and that being comes around? He looks for it. He looks for it. And we just make it worse. We can make our situation worse, much worse, because when that happens then we’re being pulled by him, by that being who want us to move even farther away from God.

He relishes more than anything else—he has the world deceived—but if he can have one of you? If he can turn one of you from God? He enjoys that much more. Because he already has the world deceived. But if he can cause someone in God’s Church to begin to believe something different, like I spoke of last Sabbath, 14/15th Passover?

It was a powerful tool that he did with one evangelist a long, long time ago, when that evangelist became antiChrist and continued to teach at Ambassador College (a wolf in sheep’s clothing) because he did incredible damage. He really did. Yet people looked up to him, admired him, oohed and aahed over him. I’ve heard accolades you wouldn’t believe, and I didn’t realize how bad it really was until later on when I’d come to find out, look at all these ministers who believed in what he taught. Sad. Pathetic.

There was one being that whatever sins that man committed where he started teaching that, and you know that at that point in time when he started teaching something against what God had given to Mr. Armstrong to him, because he sat at Mr. Armstrong’s feet in college, became ordained as an evangelist, to do something like that? He was cut off from God’s spirit, did not have it at all. And yet people were enamoured of him, in awe of him. What a horrible thing.

So, God allowed it. Why? Couldn’t God have stopped it? Absolutely. Everything that happens within the Church is in God’s hands for good and for bad. And you know why? This is how we’re molded. We went through, those who went through Laodicea, something unique was molded in all who went through Laodicea, who have come through that process, for a purpose. God isn’t molding and fashioning the same thing in everyone. To understand that there is something unique by what you go through.

If you go back in time you can look at what happened to the different Church eras. There was a lot that happened. When you read about those stories there were a lot of bad things that happened. You read about some of the different eras, it wasn’t all peachy keen. Well, why not? It’s God’s Church! It’s God’s Church. Everything should have been so beautiful, well written about each one of them. But it wasn’t. It showed some bad things. Some good things and some bad things because not everyone makes the right choices, not everyone says, “I choose You.” Not everyone puts God first. “Many are called, few are chosen.” It’s the few!

It’s that one truth alone that God has given even great truth to understand things for the future, that the Millennium, though it be under one government, though it be under one truth, one religion on earth, isn’t going to be a picnic. Because human nature is human nature.

The Great White Throne? Used to believe that that was going to be like the absolute greatest utopia that ever could exist. That’s going to be a shock for some who are at the end of the Millennium, who come through that period of time with far more who have chosen God’s way of life and so much that they can see through history that’s been accomplished over the previous 900-plus years to that point in time, wherever they were drawn and called themselves, because they all have opportunity at that time.

It’s going to be a shock, the Great White Throne. Because there are going to be some nasty people resurrected that God’s going to give opportunity to. There may be a whole bunch who aren’t, that we’ve always thought that everyone has to be. Anyway, that’s another story. Depends on the mind, doesn’t it?

God allows good and evil to exist even within the Church. Always has. Always has. Evil. By evil I mean sin, because it’s sin, turning against God, going a different way, choosing something else, whatever it might be, money, sex (those are the two biggies). Those are the two great biggies who have pulled people away in God’s Church. Sex and money and it shows what our carnal human nature is like then.

People have to engage in a battle in those things so that those don’t begin to even take place in their life, in their mind, or whatever it might be and where it does you’ve got to fight against it, and if you don’t fight against it, it will conquer you. It will destroy you in this age.

God has a purpose for working through things with people’s lives and in their lives. Be thankful when God continues to work with you. Be thankful that you can continue to repent and cry out to God and have that blessing of Christ’s sacrifice in your stead. Awesome, to understand that.

Be vigilant, be sobered. That means to be spiritually on guard because if we’re not sobered by the reality of what our nature is like and what sin can do, if you really believe, if you really know that sin can separate you from God and you know that there is certain sin in your life, it should scare “the you know what out of you.” It really should. It should just scare you to the core of your being. That’s when it talks about a certain fear of God that we should have in our life.

We should fear. Not to fear God, but to fear to live any other way than what He’s revealed to us, to realize what that will do, the damage and the hurt and the pain and the suffering that it will cause.

Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, walks around as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. Resist him… You can’t do it on your own. That’s why it goes on to add, steadfast in the faith. Because it’s in the truth that God has given to you and what God has given you to believe, starting with the most basic of it all, repentance through our Passover.

If we don’t practice that in our life day by day, because we’re not looking at ourselves in a spiritual mirror like we should be because you ought to be able to see your human nature. You ought to know when it raises it’s ugly head because of something stupid that’s come out of your mouth or out of your thinking in a judgment towards someone or something that’s said to someone that you know wasn’t right or the right way of saying it, and you have to repent of it and ask God to forgive you, that “I don’t want to be like that. Forgive me through my Passover.”

The more you grow and the farther you go along in this journey, the more refined that becomes to where you’re repenting of things that a vast majority of people can’t even see. They can’t see it. They can’t see things of human nature. Even within the Body we have to grow through this process.

And so, what you might consider a smaller thing isn’t small because it’s a spirit essence. It’s a spirit. The more you can see what that spirit is like of selfishness, of haughtiness, of pride, and the more you hate it, the more refined (I hope you understand what I’m saying there), the more refined that will be in what you’re repenting of.

It might seem smaller to you, but it’s not, because what starts out really small is what leads into big things. But if you can get rid of all the big things even faster and hate them and loathe them, then you have to start working on the smaller things because that’s where it comes from.

Resist him steadfast in the faith. That’s the only way you can do it, the belief, the truth. What is one of the primary things here? We’re called of God. We can only continue in the Church; we can only grow in the Church as God continues to give us His holy spirit in the faith. This is faith. Steadfast in the faith. So, you continue to repent, you continue to cry out to God.

We hear sermons about prayer, so we recognize we better be praying on a regular basis. We better have a habit and routine of praying before God because we know that we need God’s spirit and that’s why we’re doing it. Steadfast in the faith because we believe God, what He’s told us, how we can have fellowship with Him, His family, and on and on it goes.

…knowing that the same afflictions are experienced in your brethren who are in the world. They talk about some of these things now we’re wearing these masks, “We’re in this together.” Well, we sure are. Isn’t it fun?

But His is a spiritual relationship that God wants us to have. It’s not just protecting ourselves and trying to whatever. This is unique. We are in this together in God’s Church. We do go through the same process of the need to see our selfish, carnal human nature and to repent of it and to continue to cry out to God for His holy spirit to live and dwell within us. We want Him. We want Him. We want His life, His thinking, His mind. We want to be in unity with Him.

That’s why I marvel… I don’t marvel, I just get a little perturbed and then have to fight against that attitude and strive to do it in what is right in all the judgment when anyone comes to a point where they’re in a bad attitude about something within the Church, and think, “Don’t you know what you’re doing? Don’t we grasp that God desires…”

Unity is not just a matter of agreement with God of 57 Truths plus everything else that’s built upon all that that God has given to us. It’s everything else that goes with it and everything that happens in our life within the Church, especially, because this is our arena for growth. This is where we grow. This is how we’re taught. This is how we’re led.

Whether it is doing what God commands when He says when you’re ill, when you’re sick, call for the elders of the Church, I still fear that there are people who never do that. I think, what’s wrong? Do you not believe God, what He says there, that it’s a command, basically—not basically, it is—and that that helps us to learn what we need to learn? One of the most important things of all is we need to learn government, order, that God governs. Everything comes from Him and we want to be at one with Him in truth and in doctrine, but we want to be at one with Him with whatever happens within the administration of what God gives to us, whatever that might be.

But ever since I’ve been in the Church, 1969 on, I’ve heard, especially back then and through Laodicea even more so, murmuring, complaining, disagreement. That’s not unity. It’s not unity of spirit. Oh, I don’t want to get into that. It’d take a whole bunch of sermons just to discuss it.

Verse 10—But the God of all grace, who called us to His eternal glory through Christ Joshua, after that you have suffered a while… So, we have to suffer. In all the Church eras, as I was mentioning, there is something there that was wrong, because we can learn from that. Whatever time period we live in we are going to see things that are wrong. We’re going to see what we should grasp in a very powerful way; only the few are going to come through this through time.

Now, we’re living in a time that’s a little unique because of what God is doing, because of the refining that’s taken place. I was reminded this morning here going through some things and looking at some of this process of growth, of the measuring of the temple period that we went through. We did! Thankfully, so much that was resisting, so much that was a detriment to the Body isn’t there anymore. There is a greater unity and oneness. It doesn’t matter the size, but if we look at the whole there is a greater unity and oneness than there ever has been in God’s Church ever. I would say from the beginning. That’s a lot.

Because the whole process has been one of “many have been called, but few have been chosen” through every era, meaning that many have had to go by the wayside and by the time John came along they talked about some of these things. Because they already know what Paul had said, what was given to him about antiChrist, even though Paul didn’t refer to him as antiChrist – man of sin, the son of perdition. To turn against Christ is what it’s all about.

When John spoke of it, “Even now there are many antiChrists” but it wasn’t the one spoken of by Paul. So, even by his time they had to come to see and learn, look at certain ministers that are mentioned throughout scripture in scripture there, of ones who turned against God. They took a lot of people with them because that’s the way it’s always been.

There have been a lot of people, even up to the time of John then. He was able to see that history. That wasn’t that far into the history of the Church and to be able to look back and realize a lot of people have gone, and you learn from that. How could this be possible? And yet we’re to learn from it. Not everyone wants this way of life. Not everyone is willing to fight for this way of life. Sad.

Again, we all go through this, after you have suffered a while… What is that while? As long as you’re in the Church. That’s how long. Now, you’re going to suffer more at certain periods during that while, whatever that little while might be. I had a little while at one time, about three years of it. But I was blessed in the midst of it all.

We go through different things. I think of the time of the Apostasy. That was a while that was really tough, hard. Then to try to do something to hold on to what we had, we didn’t know what to do. We didn’t know what was happening. We didn’t know what was going to come out of all of this. Philadelphia, Global (at that time), different ones that were out there, the Church of the Great God, different names that were popping up, the one who wanted to be back in Philadelphia. All these different groups popping up all over the place. It’s like, and we can’t be one?

God’s Church is one. What’s happening? What’s taking place? It causes you to question, how can this happen? And if God’s working with you, He’ll help you to see it. If there is a purpose of something that God is allowing for a reason, in time He’s going to show you. That’s the only reason we’re here.

…after you have suffered a while. So, we suffer at different intervals greater than at other times. But you will always, as a whole, have suffering in this human life because of what you’re fighting. It’s not a pleasant thing seeing selfish human nature and realizing that you just got to keep fighting it, and keep fighting it, and keep refining it. Because the more you fight it the more it will become refined, your nature, the transformation of the mind.

God didn’t mean for it to happen in an easy fashion. There is no other way for this mind to be transformed than we go through what we’re going through in this carnal physical life. Awesome to understand that, why we’re created this way.

…after you have suffered a while will perfect… You grow. You become perfected through time until finally, it’s accomplished. It will happen if you keep doing the right things, if you keep making the right choices, if you keep crying out to God for the help of His holy spirit. He wants to give it to you. He wants to give you that strength and that help. That’s His greatest desire. It truly is.

God’s greatest desire to give you help, but He will not do it unless you ask for it, unless you want it, unless you fight for it, unless you cry out for it because that reveals something then in you. He doesn’t make us have it! He doesn’t force us to have His way. He doesn’t force us to obey Him. He doesn’t force the whole Church to obey Him. On the contrary, He’s allowed many to go by the wayside for a reason. We can learn from it and realize, “I don’t want to walk that direction. I don’t ever want in those shoes. I want to fight against that. Truly do.”

…after you have suffered a while will perfect, establish… Do you want to become established in the truth, established in oneness with God? It should be our greatest desire, to be at one with God, to love His mind, which is to love His word, which is to love His truth. Which, when we do that, we know we love Him because that’s Him, that’s God. His word, His truth, what He reveals to us. You realize, that’s who God is.

We’re all known by what’s in our mind. We all have different things in our being. This is God’s being, the word, “and the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us,” and taught us so much. God revealed more after 4,000 years. People didn’t know a whole lot compared to what He revealed at that time, things on a spiritual plane, things about a purpose that God had, things about the spirit of life and how you’re to live, not just the physical law. Incredible. Then it just blossomed more and more from there through the apostles and through time.

…will perfect, establish, strengthen… We all want that, to be strengthened in God’s might, in His life, His being.

…and settle you. What does that mean? Well, it’s another way of saying less drama, more peace. The more you understand about God and God’s way of life, and the more you strive to be that way and think that way the more at peace you can become, the less drama there will be in your life because you’re refusing, you’re growing in, you’re rejecting things that create drama.

You don’t want drama. I loathe drama. Drama, drama, drama, I hate. That’s my thinking. That should be all of our thinking. We should hate drama. Because you know what it does? It manifests ugly human nature. It reflects selfishness. It reflects harsh judgment. It reflects jealousy. It reflects pride. On and on it goes. All those things are just downright ugly.

…settle you. Isn’t that what you want to be? To have that peace? There’s a lot of work to create peace, a lot of work to finally have peace. Because it doesn’t happen until the end of all mankind. Then God will have created peace to exist for all time. God has worked hard for a long, long, long time at creating it, and meaning, He’s had to allow many things to happen and exist, that if there was any other way He would have done it. But there isn’t. The angelic realm had to be created as it was. Physical human life had to be created as it was. On and on it goes. Incredible.

…and settle you. To Him is the glory and dominion forever and ever.

I’m going to stop there today. I’m going to start doing this probably a little more often, having a little bit shorter sermons from time to time and working in that direction. We’re at a point in our lives that it makes it a lot harder for you to breathe and I feel it’s a direction God’s leading us in in the Church anyway, and it’s all a matter of how we have grown. So, be thankful.